When We Say Clean
Lately, I’m encouraged by how the design field is examining its role in perpetuating racism. Designs that defy pervasive tropes of “good” are growing more common (even though many have been doing this work for decades), and I recognize my role in previously failing to recognize them, as well as the forces at play that have historically hidden them from my view. With this, I want to pause and reflect. How did we get to the point where I find myself cheering on every example of authentically non-western design as a defiant act against white supremacy? What are the specific moments in history that birthed the use of certain language and principles, and then perpetuated them as norms? And, most importantly, how do we move beyond them?
Take, for example, white space. White space, and the abundant use of it in design, has earned associations that I feel are undeserved. Referring to the intentionally placed open space that accompanies other design elements, white space is frequently wielded to communicate integrity, elegance, sophistication, and most damningly, cleanliness. Artists and designers have long employed this element to potent effect. But, to be clear, these associations are not inherent to the color white.
What do we conjure when we call something “clean” in design? This term is historically and culturally loaded. In the period following the Civil War, an explosion of growth and pollution in urban areas paralleled a rise in language that characterized white people as inherently more clean than non-white people. Popular culture, academic dialogue, and advertising promoted this association of non-white skin with dirt. Ads rampantly depicted Asian Americans, Native Americans, African Americans, and foreign-born people (including southern Italians and Russian Jews) via vile stereotypes: disheveled, slovenly, and therefore the opposite of an “American” ideal of beauty. This helped fuel the public’s anxiety over lack of cleanliness and order, which was matched by a preoccupation with social hierarchy. Americans’ obsession with a very particular—white, Western European—ritual of “cleanliness” became standard. Consequently, anything outside of it was considered filthy.
The idea of cleanliness also has long-reaching associations with white settlement, industry, commerce—all justified as progress. Native American relocation policies, missionary work, and even foreign travel by Americans occurred within this paradigm, tapping into specious practices of science and anthropology rooted in eugenics. During the late-19th century period of American expansionism, cleanliness was common rhetoric for identifying non-white bodies as contaminated and in need of purification, both physically and morally. “The first step towards lightening the White Man’s Burden is through teaching the virtues of cleanliness,” bluntly stated a popular soap ad from 1899. Cleanliness demonstrated moral and social superiority, indicating “civilization.” This link was a key part of rationalizing white supremacy as Americans extended their influence.
This anachronism still pervades design chatter, implicitly and explicitly. The ongoing association of “white” with “clean,” is outdated at best, racist at worst, and simply lazy, for certain. We should challenge ourselves to use sharper descriptions in design and cultivate shared language that is informative and legitimate.*
I’m not suggesting that white space appeals to white people only. Nor, that solely westernized cultures idealize whiteness. Instead, I want us to trace how these associations emerged and became cemented in design, and ask how we can move past them. The conflation of clean with white is only one example of this — certainly, there are others. Let’s root them out and envision what we will grow in their place.
*Of course, this is context-specific, but how about any of the following in our bank of options? Negative space, blank, unmarked, stark, toward visual hierarchy, moving the eye, legibility…
Sources:
Humphries, C. (2015, July 30). Have We Hit Peak Whiteness? Nautilus. https://nautil.us/issue/26/color/have-we-hit-peak-whiteness
Pracejus, J., Olsen, G. D., & O’Guinn, T. (2006). How Nothing Became Something: White Space, Rhetoric, History, and Meaning. Journal of Consumer Research, 82–90. https://doi.org/10.1086/504138
Sivulka, J. (2001). Stronger Than Dirt: A Cultural History of Advertising Personal Hygiene in America, 1875–1940 (Illustrated ed.). Humanities Press.
Zimring, C. A. (2017). Clean and White: A History of Environmental Racism in the United States (Reprint ed.). NYU Press.
